Laptop charger not working

geek84

Good Morning folks

I have had an Acer laptop for about 3 years now. During the last few days, I have noticed that the charger is not working. Does that mean the 'life' of the charger has come to an end and that I will need to buy a new one? If so, could you suggest any places where I could buy a cheap laptop charger?

Thanks in advance for your response.

John_Gray

Do you mean that the charger is really not working? Or that the battery has come to the end of its natural life (which is always much shorter than you think)?

geek84

Hi John

Thanks for your reply.

I am not very computer literate, so by 'battery' do you mean the battery pack fitted on the bottom side of the laptop or do you mean the small rectangluar box which is part of the charger unit?

Thanks

tibbyuk

Can you turn the laptop on with the power cable in?

Is the light on, on the power pack (the square thing the cable comes from)?

John_Gray

geek84 wrote: »

I am not very computer literate, so by 'battery' do you mean the battery pack fitted on the bottom side of the laptop or do you mean the small rectangluar box which is part of the charger unit?

I meant the laptop battery itself, which usually lasts only about 2-4 years, before starting to lose charge fairly rapidly, so that it holds a charge for perhaps much less than an hour.

The main part of the charger unit is the transformer/rectifier which turns mains voltage into something like 12-19V DC. These go wrong far less often, and usually 'mechanically', because the box gets bashed, for example.

geek84

Hi

Yes, I can turn on the laptop but the power supply is not making the difference - the laptop has still got about 50% charge !

The light is not coming on in the box which leads fron the cable, so I presume the charge unit has gone faulty?

GunJack

if you take the battery out of the lapppy and plug it into the mains, will it start up ?? If so, your charger's ok and your battery is probably goosed. If it won't fire up without the battery when plugged into the mains, it's the charger.....

simples

Hammyman

geek84 wrote: »

Hi

Yes, I can turn on the laptop but the power supply is not making the difference - the laptop has still got about 50% charge !

The light is not coming on in the box which leads fron the cable, so I presume the charge unit has gone faulty?

Either the charge unit has or the socket in the laptop has. The only way to find out is to find someone with a voltmeter who can check if the charger is putting out the correct voltage which is on a sticker on the charger. If it is, the fault is with the laptop socket and a typical repair is within the £40-£70 range.

tibbyuk

To mirror and clarify what was said by GunJack, take out your battery to check by:

- With the laptop off, turn it over and look for a long thin looking section normally towards the hinge of the laptop
- Is there a slide switch? Or some kind of push button? If so, push/slide this and the batter should lever out letting you fully remove it.
- With this out, put the cable in and try turning the laptop on.

Although from the sounds of it, I think it is most likely the PSU that has the issue due to the light coming on. Best bet would be to try bringing your laptop into a big Laptop store, and asking kindly if they would let you try one of the show model's cables on your own to see if it works.

Or failing that, ask around friends.

geek84

Hi Folks

Thanks for you replies so far.

I think there is something wrong with the charger, and so I was thinking of changing the fuse inside the black small rectangular unit.

However, I cannot take the black small box apart in order to fit a new fuse. It just seems a solid object with screws no where to be seen. Is that the usual case? Are chargers normaly 'solid units' which cannot be taken apart by, say, a screw driver?

Thanks in advance for your response.

erdd2

Having similar issues, I borrowed a charger from a friend....this worked okay and charged my lappy, thus determining lappy and battery were ok...charger was goosed.

Have since bought a notebook and "juggle" the charger from that purchase...will watch your post with interest as I too would like to buy a charger